Car-Buying Incentives

Most of you have probably seen those car commercials where they offer to make your car payments for a certain amount of time should you lose your job. At first I thought this was a rather nice thing that the car companies were doing. But when you stop and really think about it, this is precisely the type of stuff that got us into trouble with the housing market and, in one way or another, collapsed the economy.

On the surface this offer sounds like a noble gesture by greedy but flailing car companies. "Just bought a car but now you don't have a job and can't pay for it? No problem. We'll make the payments for you." Now here is where I see a problem. If you think you may be on the verge of losing your job or you may have to take a pay cut, is this really the time to buy a car? Should you really shell out thousands of dollars if there is even the slightest chance you may lose your job or if you may not be able to make the payments? Probably not. Similar to what they did withy housing. "Hey, you can't afford this house? No problem. We'll give you a subprime loan on a house you should not even be looking at let alone consider buying."

I don't think it's a good idea to tempt people to buy a car when there financial situation may be in jeopardy because in the long run it will be me (& all the other fiscally responsible individuals) who will suffer and will have to pay for the financial indiscretions of certain individuals. People in the U.S. have always spent beyond their means but lately it seems that people are spending thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars beyond their means. Buying a house and a car are not decisions that should be made in a day. These can be life altering decisions and all the ramifications need to be considered.

Thank you.